Just a few days ago we reported on how gambling addiction can be recognized and combated. Unfortunately, this help comes too late for 47-year-old Aliya. She lost around 150,000 euros in various online casinos in just four months. However, she lost most of her money with a gaming operator with a license from the Caribbean island of Curacao. We have already reported in the past that the Netherlands wanted to implement a gambling reform in Curacao.
Most recently, Aliya played with a round bet of 100 euros
As the 47-year-old tells in an interview with RTL, she started out with manageable stakes of EUR 0.50 per spin. However, she later increased the stakes first to 5 euros, later to 50 euros and finally to 100 euros per game round. As a result, Aliya lost an incredible amount of around 150,000 euros in just four months. She suffered the losses in the period between October 2020 and February 2021. In other words, exactly in the period in which the transitional phase of the new State Treaty on Gaming (GlüStV) was already in place. But this couldn’t help her much, as she mostly played in an online casino with a license from Curacao. In any case, these online providers do not adhere to the newly decided measures for player protection.
The person concerned also said that there were days on which she did not sleep for 48 hours in a row. In addition, she even thought of suicide at times. Just a few months ago we asked ourselves in an article whether young gambling addicts are more at risk of suicide.
Ilona Füchtenschnieder from the professional association gambling addiction recommends that you should only gamble away money that you actually have left. Specifically, she says in the RTL interview:
“You have to be able to accept losses. Really cool gamble on money when you have it – and if you don’t have it, leave it!
How could it get so far?
In the RTL interview, Aliya talks about how her private problems led her to start gambling. At the beginning of the corona pandemic, her husband had an accident and she had to look after the whole family. She then became pregnant again and lost her job. When she then sees her son’s friend playing on the smartphone, she becomes curious. Her original intention was to distract herself and maybe even earn some money.
But at some point she lost control of her gaming behavior. Over time, she even gambled away the money that came from selling her family’s house. It wasn’t until late that she realized that she had made a big mistake. Then she turned to debt counseling and addiction help. In addition, the 47-year-old is now trying to reclaim the lost money from the online casino.
Conclusion
Within just four months, the 47-year-old Aliya gambled away an amount of 150,000 euros online. In this short period of time, she lost an average of 37,500 euros every month. Of course, a reputable online casino should have noticed that a user has lost control of her gaming behavior. Especially since she started with round stakes of 0.50 euros and later played with up to 100 euros per spin. Unfortunately, the online gambling provider did not intervene and did not protect the gambling addict. It will be interesting to see whether such cases will increase in the future. After all, there is a justified fear that many gambling fans will switch to online casinos with a license from Curacao due to the new restrictions in Germany.
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